“Hopkins has a plan, I think.” Anne was trying to be reassuring. “He’ll get us the breakthrough. You’ll see.”
“I hope so,” Stanley said. He cursed. “I wish I could see like you, Anne.”
She pursed her lips. “It’s not a pleasant gift. Now then, demon or no demon, I want to itemize the stuff I stole. Who wants to come to the cellar? I know it’s wet, but it’s only a couple of streets away….” She looked around.
“Red feelers…” Fred gave a shudder. “You should have seen ’em. Covered with little brown hairs….”
“That was too close,” Stanley said. “If it had overheard us talking …”
“Just one mistake is all it’ll take. Just one, and we’ll be—”
“Oh, shut up, Nick.” Kitty slammed the counter hatch back and stomped off across the shop. She knew she was only feeling what they all felt: the claustrophobia of the hunted. On a day like this, with the rain drumming endlessly down, they were all reduced to loitering helplessly indoors, a state that exacerbated their permanent sense of fear and isolation. They were cut off from the rest of the teeming city, with wicked, clever powers set against them.
This was no new sensation for Kitty. She’d never been clear of it, not once, for three long years. Not since the attack in the park, when her world turned upside down.
12
Perhaps an hour had passed before a gentleman walking his dog had found the bodies on the bridge, and contacted the authorities. An ambulance had arrived soon afterward, and Kitty and Jakob were removed from public view.
She had woken in the ambulance. A small window of light switched on far away, and for a time she watched it approaching on a long slow curve through the darkness. Little forms moved inside the light, but she couldn’t make them out. Her ears felt as if they were stuffed with cork. The light grew steadily, then with a sudden rush, and her eyes were open. Sound returned to her ears with a painful pop.
A woman’s face peered down at her. “Try not to move. You’ll be all right.”
“What—what—?”
“Try not to speak.”
With sudden panic, memory returned: “That monster! That monkey!” She struggled, but found her arms pinned to the trolley.
“Please, dear. Don’t. You’ll be all right.”
She lay back, every muscle rigid. “Jakob …”
“Your friend? He’s here, too.”
“He’s all right?”
“Just try to rest.”
And whether it was the motion of the ambulance or the weariness deep inside her, she had soon slept, waking in the hospital to find nurses cutting her clothes away. The front of her T-shirt and shorts were charred and crispy, flaking into the air like wisps of burned newspaper. Once attired in a flimsy white shift, she was, for a short while, the focus of attention: doctors swarmed around her like wasps around jam, checking her pulse, respiration, and temperature. Then they suddenly drew back, and Kitty was left lying isolated in the empty ward.
After a long while, a nurse passed by. “We’ve informed your parents,” she said. “They’re coming to take you home.” Kitty looked at her with incomprehension. The woman halted. “You’re quite well,” she said. “The Black Tumbler must have just missed you, caught you only with its aftershock. You’re a very lucky girl.”
This took a moment to sink in. “Then Jakob’s all right, too?”
“He wasn’t so lucky, I’m afraid.”
Terror welled up inside her. “What do you mean? Where is he?”
“He’s nearby. He’s being cared for.”
She began to cry. “But he was standing beside me. He’s got to be all right.”
“I’ll bring you something to eat, dear. That’ll make you feel better. Why don’t you try reading something to take your mind off it? There are magazines on the table.”
Kitty did not read the magazines. When the nurse had gone, she slipped out of the bed and stood, unsteadily, on the cool wooden floor. Then, step by step, but growing in confidence in her own strength, she crossed the quiet ward, walking through bright patches of sunlight under the tall, arched windows, till she came to the corridor outside.
On the opposite side of the corridor was a closed door. A curtain had been drawn across the inside of its window. Checking quickly left and right, Kitty flitted forward like a ghost, until she stood with her fingers on the handle. She listened, but the room beyond was silent. Kitty turned the handle and went in.
It was an airy room, small, with a single bed in it, and a large window that overlooked the roofscapes of South London. The sunlight blazed a yellow diagonal across the bed, snipping it neatly in two. The upper half of the bed was in shade, the figure lying asleep there likewise.
The room was heavy with normal hospital smells—medicine, iodine, antiseptics—but underlying them all was another scent, a smoky one.
Kitty shut the door, stole on the balls of her feet across the floor, hovered by the bed. She looked down at Jakob, her eyes filling with tears.
Her first thought was anger at the doctors for shaving off his hair. Why did they have to make him bald? It would take an age to regrow it, and Mrs. Hyrnek doted on his long black curls. He looked so strange, particularly with the odd shadows thrown upon his face…. Only then did she realize what the shadows were.
Where his hair had protected him, Jakob’s skin was its normal swarthy color. Everywhere else, from the base of his neck right up to his hairline, it was seared or stained with roughly vertical wavy streaks of black and gray, the color of ash and burned wood. There wasn’t an inch of his ordinary skin color left on his face, except faintly at the eyebrows. These had been shaved away: two little pink-brown crescents showed there. But his lips, his eyelids, the lobes of his ears were all discolored. It was more like a tribal mask, an effigy made for a carnival parade, than a living face.
Under the bedclothes, his chest rose and fell raggedly. A little wheezing sound came from between his lips.
Kitty reached out and touched a hand lying on the blanket. His palms, which he had raised to ward off the smoke, were the same streaked color as his face.
Her touch aroused a response: the head turned from side to side; discomfort flickered across the livid face. The gray lips parted; they moved as if they were trying to speak. Kitty took her hand away, but bent closer.
“Jakob?”
The eyes flicked open with such suddenness that she could not prevent herself from jerking back in shock, colliding painfully with a corner of the bedside table. She leaned forward again, though instantly aware he was not conscious. The eyes gazed straight ahead, wide and sightless. Against the black-gray skin, they stood out pale and clear like two milky-white opal stones. It was then she wondered if he were blind.
When the doctors arrived, bringing with them Mr. and Mrs. Hyrnek, and Kitty’s mother clamoring behind, they found her kneeling by the bedside, hands clasping Jakob’s, her head resting against the blanket. It was only with difficulty that they pried her free.
At home, Kitty pried herself in turn from the anguished questioning of her parents and climbed the stairs to the landing of the little house. For many minutes she stood in front of the mirror, looking at herself, at her ordinary, unblemished face. She saw the smooth skin, the thick dark hair, the lips and eyebrows, the freckles on her hands, the mole on the side of her nose. It was all exactly the same as always, as it simply had no right to be.
* * *
The mechanism of the Law, such as it was, swung laboriously into action. Even while Jakob still lay unconscious in the hospital bed, the police called on Kitty’s family to take a statement, much to her parents’ anxiety. Kitty recounted what she knew tersely and without elaboration, a young policewoman taking notes all the while.
“We hope there’ll be no trouble, officer,” Kitty’s father said, as she finished.
“We wouldn’t want that,” her mother added. “Really we wouldn’t.”
“There will be an investigation,” the policewoman said
, still scribbling.
“How will you find him?” Kitty asked. “I don’t know his name, and I’ve forgotten the name of the … thing.”
“We can trace him by his car. If he crashed as you say, the vehicle will have been picked up by some garage or other, taken to be serviced. Then we can establish the truth of the matter.”
“You’ve got the truth,” Kitty said flatly.
“We don’t want any trouble,” her father said again.
“We’ll be in touch,” the policewoman said. She snapped her notebook shut.
The car, a Rolls-Royce Silver Thruster, was quickly located; the identity of its owner followed. He was a Mr. Julius Tallow, a magician working for Mr. Underwood at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. While not particularly senior, he was well connected and a familiar figure around the city. He cheerfully admitted that it had been he who had unleashed the Black Tumbler on the two children in Wandsworth Park; indeed, he wanted it known that he was proud to have done so. He had been peacefully driving past when he had been attacked by the individuals concerned. They had smashed his windscreen with a missile so that he lost control, then approached him aggressively, wielding two long staves of wood. It was evident that they intended to rob him. He had acted in self-defense there and then, striking them down before they had a chance to attack. He considered his response a restrained one, given the circumstances.
“Well, he’s obviously lying,” Kitty said. “We were nowhere near the road to start with—and if he acted in self-defense at the roadside, how does he explain our being found up at the bridge? Did you arrest him?”
The policewoman looked surprised. “He’s a magician. It isn’t that simple. He denies your charges. The case will be heard at the Courts of Justice next month. If you wish to take the matter further, you must attend and speak against Mr. Tallow then.”
“Good,” Kitty said. “I can’t wait.”
“She won’t be attending,” her father said. “She’s done enough damage already.”
Kitty snorted, but said nothing. Her parents abhorred the idea of confrontation with the magicians and strongly disapproved of her act of trespass in the park. On her safe return from hospital, they had seemed almost angrier with her than with Tallow—a state of affairs that had awoken her strong resentment.
“Well, it’s up to you,” the policewoman said. “I’ll send the details anyway.”
For a week or more there was little word on Jakob’s condition in the hospital. Visits were forbidden. In an effort to get news, Kitty finally plucked up the courage to trudge down the road to the Hyrnek house for the first time since the incident. She walked up the familiar pathway diffidently, unsure of her reception; guilt weighed heavily on her mind.
But Mrs. Hyrnek was polite enough; indeed, she clasped Kitty to her ample bosom and hugged her tightly before ushering her indoors. She led her into the kitchen, over which, as always, the smell of cooking hung strong and pungent. Bowls of half-chopped vegetables sat in the center of the trestle table; across the wall stretched the great oak dresser, laden with gaudily decorated plates. Odd utensils of every description hung from the dark walls. Jakob’s grandmama sat in her high chair beside the great black stove, stirring a saucepan of soup with a long-handled spoon. All was as normal, down to the last familiar crack in the ceiling.
Except that Jakob was not there.
Kitty sat at the table and accepted a mug of strongly scented tea. With a heavy sigh and a creak of protesting wood, Mrs. Hyrnek sat opposite her. For some minutes, she did not speak—in itself a unique occurrence. Kitty, for her part, did not feel she could start the conversation. Up by the stove, Jakob’s grandmama continued stirring the steaming soup.
At last, Mrs. Hyrnek took a loud slurp of tea, swallowed, spoke abruptly. “He woke up today,” she said.
“Oh! Is he—?”
“He’s as well as could be expected. Which isn’t well.”
“No. But if he’s woken, that’s good, isn’t it? He’ll be okay?”
Mrs. Hyrnek made an expressive face. “Hah! It was the Black Tumbler. His face will not recover.”
Kitty felt the tears welling. “Not at all?”
“The scorching is too fierce. You should know this. You have seen it.”
“But why should he—?” Kitty furrowed her brows. “I mean—I’m all right, and I was hit, too. We were both—”
“You? You were not hit!” Mrs. Hyrnek tapped her fingers against her face and looked at Kitty with such ferocious condemnation that Kitty shrank back against the kitchen wall and did not dare continue. Mrs. Hyrnek eyed her for a long moment with a basilisk’s gaze, then resumed sipping her tea.
Kitty spoke in a small voice. “I-I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hyrnek.”
“Do not be sorry. You did not hurt my son.”
“But is there no way of changing it back?” Kitty said. “I mean, surely if the doctors don’t have treatments, the magicians could do something?”
A shake of the head. “The effects are permanent. Even if they weren’t, they would not choose to help us.”
Kitty scowled. “They must help us! How can they not? What we did was an accident. What Mr. Tallow did was a calculated crime.” Her anger rose within her. “He wanted to kill us, Mrs. Hyrnek! The Courts must see that. Jakob and I can tell them, next month at the hearing—he’ll be better by then, won’t he? We’ll shoot Tallow’s story full of holes and they can take him to the Tower. Then they’ll find some way of helping Jakob’s face, Mrs. Hyrnek, you’ll see.”
Even amid the passion of her speech, she was aware of how hollow her words sounded. But Mrs. Hyrnek’s next words were unexpected, nevertheless.
“Jakob will not be going to the hearing, dear. And neither should you. Your parents do not want you to, and they are quite right. It is not wise.”
“But we have to, if we’re to tell them—”
Mrs. Hyrnek reached across the table and laid her great pink hand upon Kitty’s own. “What do you think will happen to Hyrnek and Sons if Jakob engages in a lawsuit with a magician? Well? Mr. Hyrnek would lose everything in twenty-four hours. They’d close us down, or transfer their trade to Jaroslav’s or another of our competitors. Besides …” She smiled sadly. “Why bother? We wouldn’t have any chance of winning.'’
For a moment, Kitty was too stunned to reply “But I’ve been requested to appear,” she said. “And so has Jakob.”
Mrs. Hyrnek shrugged. “Such an invitation can be easily declined. The authorities would prefer not to be troubled by such a trifling matter. Two common children? It is a waste of their precious time. Take my advice, dear. Do not go to the Courts. No good can come of it.”
Kitty stared at the callused tabletop. “But that means letting him—Mr. Tallow—off, scot-free,” she said quietly. “I can’t—it wouldn’t be right.”
Mrs. Hyrnek stood suddenly, her chair screeching against the tiles on the floor. “It is not a question of ‘right,’girl,” she said. “It is a question of common sense. And anyway”—she seized a bowl of chopped cabbage in one hand and advanced to the stove—“it is not entirely certain Mr. Tallow is going to get off quite as freely as you think.” With a jerk of the wrists, she tipped the cabbage hissing and bubbling into a vat of boiling water. By the side of the stove Jakob’s grandmama nodded and grinned through the steam like a goblin, stirring, stirring, stirring the soup with her knotted, bony hands.
13
Three weeks passed, in which, through a combination of stubbornness and pride, Kitty resisted all efforts to dissuade her from the path she had chosen. The harder her parents tried to threaten or cajole her, the more entrenched she became: she was determined to attend the Courts on the scheduled day to see that justice was done.
Her resolve was strengthened by word of Jakob’s condition: he remained in the hospital, conscious, lucid, but unable to see. His family hoped that his sight would return in time. The thought of the alternative made Kitty tremble with grief and rage.
If her parents ha
d had the power, they would have declined the summons when it arrived. But Kitty was the plaintiff: her signature was needed to halt the case, and this she would not give. The process of Law continued, and on the appropriate morning, Kitty arrived at the Great Gate of the Courts at 8:30 sharp, dressed in her smartest jacket and best suede trousers. Her parents were not with her; they had refused to come.
All about her was a motley throng, jostling and elbowing her as they waited for the doors to open. At the lowest end of the spectrum, a few guttersnipes barged back and forth, selling hot pastries and pies from large wooden trays. Kitty kept tight hold of her shoulder bag whenever they passed near. She noticed several tradesmen too, ordinary people like her, decked out in their best suits, all pale-faced and sickly with nerves. By far the largest group consisted of worried-looking magicians, resplendent in their Piccadilly suits and formal capes and gowns. Kitty scanned their faces, looking for Mr. Tallow, but he was nowhere to be seen. Burly Night Police kept watch on the fringes of the crowd.
The doors opened, a whistle blew; the crowd streamed in.
Each visitor was funneled past an official in a uniform of red and gold. Kitty gave her name; the man scanned a piece of paper.
“Courtroom twenty-seven,” he said. “Stairs on the left, hard right at the top. Fourth door along. Hurry along there.”
He pushed her forward and she was past him, under a high stone arch and out into the cool marble halls of the Judicial Courts. Stone busts of great men and women gazed down dispassionately from niches in the walls; silent people hurried to and fro. The air hummed with seriousness and hush and a distinct smell of carbolic soap. Kitty climbed the stairs and made her way along a busy corridor until she arrived at the door of Courtroom 27. Outside it was a wooden bench. A sign above instructed all claimants to sit and wait to be called.
Kitty sat and waited.
For the next fifteen minutes, a small, pensive group of people gathered one by one outside the courtroom. They stood or sat in silence, absorbed in their own thoughts. Most were magicians: they immersed themselves in sheaves of legalistic documents, written on paper headed with complex stars and signs. They did their best to avoid one another’s eyes.
Bartimaeus: The Golem’s Eye Page 12
